Research Hotspots, Research Frontiers, and Management Significance: A Bibliometric Analysis and Review of Global Food Waste of Students Research Based on CiteSpace

Abstract

Reducing food waste in the student population is important for promoting sustainable economic, social, and ecological development. In this paper, with the help of CiteSpace software (versions 6.1.R6 and 6.2.R4), we visually analyze the literature related to the food waste of students in the WoS core collection database. It is found that (1) scholars are paying increasing attention to the field of student food waste research, with the United States being the country with the largest total amount of research in this field, the greatest academic influence, and the most frequent cooperation with other countries. (2) Research in this field can be broadly divided into three phases: the starting period (2000–2010), the exploration period (2011–2015), and the development period (2016–2023). The research on student food waste involves multiple fields of knowledge, such as statistics, behavior, psychology, management, nutrition, etc. It is divided into three research hotspots, namely student food waste quantity measurement, student food waste influencing factors, and student food waste behavioral interventions, as well as three cutting-edge themes, namely student food waste in developing countries, student food waste and dietary intake and nutritional health, and student food waste from the perspective of behavioral science. (3) Scholars from different countries/regions have different research focuses. Research in the United States focuses on the development of student food waste interventions and the investigation of students’ and teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and barriers to intervention in student populations; European scholars focus on researching this area from a behavioral perspective; developing countries in Asia focus on quantifying the level of food waste among college students and exploring the impact of demographic factors on student food waste; and developed countries in Asia focus on surveys of teachers, dietitians, and other parties to explore the impact of food education on food waste and propose food education interventions based on the recommendations of various parties. Based on the above findings, future research directions are proposed to provide references for subsequent research on food waste among students.